[Birdtalk] Jaeger Tips

[Kristin Purdy]

Should you visit Farmington Bay WMA in Davis County to see the jaeger and no 
birders are already present and on the bird, here are a few tips to help 
find it. It's not necessarily easy and it was lucky for me that Glenn, 
Steve, Steve and Tim were already on the bird when I arrived yesterday.

First, lighting is best in the afternoon since the unit into which you must 
look is east of the west dike. Skip looking through all the little black 
spots that might morph into coots, ducks and grebes. The jaeger won't be 
among them. The jaeger has no friends.

Next to (just east) of the west dike there may be a wide expanse of open 
water, then the jaeger, then a thin band of open water, then the long line 
of coots, ducks and grebes. The jaeger has consistently rested in the water 
west of the long line of other birds. You can pick it out with binoculars, 
but a scope is the most helpful equipment.

The jaeger's shape is also very different from most of the birds out there. 
Tim mentioned to look for a dark gull-like bird. Also remember that the 
grebes', coots' and ducks' backs are parallel to the water line, in other 
words, flat, and that their undersides almost entirely contact the water. 
This is not true of the jaeger. The jaeger is swoopy. Its tail and wingtips 
angle upward and away from the bird's body until those body parts are 
entirely out of the water. There's airspace between the water's surface and 
the bird's undertail coverts because the end of the bird points up and away 
from the water. So once again, think of a warm brown gull.

If you don't see the bird in your first sweep along that western edge of the 
flock, keep sweeping. Many times the jaeger launched yesterday in the 
pursuit of gulls and we did our best to stick with it. The bird continued to 
return to the western edge like a boomerang and we were able to find it 
there after every absence until the 4:30 departure.

Hope this helps.

Kris